Ecology

Evaluation Summary:

This study will be of interest to wildlife ecologists and conservation practitioners. The authors took a collaborative approach and collated a large dataset of wildlife camera trap recordings across cities in the USA. The analyses reveal variability in diel activity among species and cities, providing important insights into the effects of urbanization.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Hoverflies are a group of insects that provide crucial ecosystem services such as pollination and crop protection. Their migratory behavior in western countries is well characterized, but in eastern Asia, the annual summer monsoon provides a 'highway' of favorable winds for the airborne transport of migratory organisms, and the migration of hoverflies in this large region has not been well studied. This study addresses hoverfly migration in this region and its consequences using a variety of suitable methods. The work will be of great interest to insect migration biologists and pollination ecologists.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The manuscript reports that when lowland plants were transplanted into alpine turfs under lowland climatic conditions, they rapidly increase soil microbial decomposition of carbon stocks due to root exudates feeding the microbes. The authors conclude that when lowland plants migrate to alpine sites and these warm up, they may also cause a pulse of carbon loss from soil. An alternative explanation of their findings might be that when alpine plants are transplanted into alpine turfs under lowland climatic conditions, these are unable to increase soil microbial decomposition as much as lowland plants because the latter are better adapted to their climatic home environment.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #4 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Manipulations of sex hormones in animals in ecologically relevant environments usually involve long-term manipulations using chronic implants or injections of esterified steroids with longer half-lives than the endogenous hormones. This has been done in line with the prevailing idea of the long-lasting effects of steroids mediated by the transcritpional actions of their liganded receptors. The specific novelty of this study lies in the transiency of hormone availability (testosterone's half-life is about 2 hours). This might suggest that the observed effects depend on a mode of action different from the mode of action during chronic sex hormone exposure. It should also be noted that any study in natural settings is significantly more difficult to perform than in the lab. However, as all brain/hormonal functions evolved in natural environments, these studies are absolutely crucial to understand the function of the respective systems.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Urbanization has broad impacts for macroecology but its consequences for wildlife microbial ecology remain unclear. Dillard et al. hypothesize that humans living in an urban setting may transfer their microbes to wildlife with potential adverse effects. They analyze 16S rRNA gene sequencing data from humans, crested anoles, and coyotes, leading to the discovery of multiple bacteria that fit the pattern of urbanization and inter-species transfer.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Zhou et al. provide a robust study on isotopic and metabolic changes of a soil community across a gradient of different land-use types in Sumatra, Indonesia. By mixing community-based analyses of stable isotopes and size-based metabolic measures, they are able to elucidate, for the first time, important links among plants and the soil food web in tropical ecosystems. This study is of importance to tropical biologists, ecosystem ecologists and biodiversity conservationists aiming to understand the impacts of humans on tropical forests.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Wang et al. adapt a new statistical framework for a multi-site multi-year data set to investigate the effects of environmental variables on the temporal stability of plant communities and biomass productivity in Chinese grassland communities. This new framework may well turn out to be one that the larger ecological and ecosystem academic communities, interested in temporal changes of ecological processes across large spatial scales, have been looking for.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript explores how microbial foraging strategies contribute to species coexistence in aquatic environments, and will be of interest to microbial ecologists and theoretical ecologists. Using mathematical modeling, the authors demonstrate that differences in particle detachment rates across bacterial species can promote coexistence. Additional explanation and documentation of methods, along with a discussion of the generality of the results, would strengthen the manuscript and ensure reproducibility.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The current study follows up on previous studies from this group, uncovering the role of olfactory signaling in the migratory locust. Specifically, it follows up on a recent report demonstrating that 4-vinylanisole serves as a locust aggregation pheromone. Here, this pheromone is also assigned an instrumental role in control and synchronization of female sexual maturation. This study will be useful for the understanding of swarming behaviour in locusts, and it will also interest those who work on behaviour and its modulation.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

In this manuscript, the authors use long-term population records for 157 mammal species to investigate how populations respond to annual weather anomalies, whether the responses are explained by species' life-history traits, and whether responses vary among species and biomes. They find that populations of shorter-lived species that have larger litter sizes respond more to weather anomalies than longer-lived species with smaller litter sizes. Their results can help understand and predict how different species may respond to climate change, and ultimately, what makes species more sensitive to climate change.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)